For You Visual Types

I thought I'd include a picture I took on a long walk I took yesterday with the new camera. I'm still on the fence about the camera and what it can do. I have no experience with cameras like this so I don't have anything to compare it to. It seems like the computer software that came with it, does a good job of touching up the photos, but I'd rather it just take better photos. Eh, time will tell.

I bought this camera with the idea of taking it on any more long-distance hikes I go on, but I'm already rethinking how practical that might (not) be.

Happy New Year?

I hope so. I'll be staying in tonight and keeping it really low key.

It's raining and 60 here. Even Sarah's ultra Republican father has been forced to admit that global warming is here. That must have hurt to admit.

Work keeps trickling back to me about the new car I bought but have yet to see. It's white, has a sun roof, an alarm system that would scramble jets if Pease was still an Air Base, and a stereo so complicated my young sister couldn't figure it out. I'm used to quirky cars, but quirks at the other end of the spectrum, for example, having to put my foot under the clutch and pull up to make sure it has fully returned, no heat in winter (a given no matter what car, even the non-VW's), or touching two raw wire ends together to get the high beams to come on. This new car sounds frightening complicated and expensive once it begins to age more.

I'll be starting a new job this Tuesday painting the inside of a two-story house going on the market soon. I'll be the only painter. It looks like a straight-forward job and I'm hoping it goes smoothly.

Check in next year for the next riveting installment of my blog.

New Camera

What's so special about this picture? It is the very first taken with my brand new Nikon D80. It cost a pretty penny, but I'm hoping that a better camera will improve my photo quality. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. You can be the judge once the pictures begin to come in. In the mean time I have to curl up with the manual and learn how to even use this spicy bit of equipment.

Proud Owner

I'm now the owner of a new/used car. The Honda Civic I've had for a couple years is on it's way out. I bought an Accord sight unseen. I'm told it was a good deal. I'm hoping so. It comes with one of those silly over-the-top "sound systems". I've always wondered how quality music like Bob Dylan would sound like on one of those systems. Now I'll have the chance to find out.

Noisy Neighbors

I live on the top floor of a 3-story apartment building. We have squirrels running around in the attic above. I know this because I can hear them plain as day. It sounds like they are running directly on the sheetrock that is our ceiling. I wonder where is the insulation that should be muffling the tread of their not-so-tiny feet? I sometimes wonder if they have taken up the insulation and made a rodent palace in one corner for themselves. Yesterday Sarah thought there was something in the heating duct just behind the vent. I didn't see anything and I'm hoping it was ON the duct and not IN the duct.

Top THIS

This was given to me today. It's the best Christmas present EVER.

Oh, and it plays "Silent Night" and snows inside when you shake it.

Composting

The local coffee chain in Louisville is Heine Bros. It's owner is a community minded guy that's also interested in the environment. He's starting a pilot program to compost all the coffee grounds that's generated in his stores each day. In addition they are adding the vegetable waste from the local health food market. Yesterday Sarah and I volunteered to help with the effort. We added about 1,700 lbs of organics to the bins. It had accumulated over a period of weeks. The composting process begins with bacteria breaking down the food in large bins. After a few weeks it is moved into different bins and worms are added to speed up the works. Heine hopes that this becomes a pilot program to prove to other companies that it can be done easily. The resulting dirt is sold off I believe.

It is amazing to see the sheer volume of food and coffee waste that would normally go right into a landfill. It's nice to see it get recycled into something usable.

Out With The Camera

It was a beautiful sunny day today. I went out with my camera to take some some more photos. As per usual lately I went to the local national cemetery a short walk from here. It offers a lot of photo opportunities. Time seemed to slip away like loose change from a pocket with a hole in it.

Christmas Music

I don't often listen to the radio. Stores and supermarkets often have music playing and of course this time of year it's Christmas music. I went to the store today for some milk and it wasn't til I got home that I realized I had the same Christmas song locked in my head all the way home on an endless loop. Call me Scrooge if you will, but 38 years of the same music is enough. You may counter that by saying that it's only once a year and that's true, but its for one tenth of the entire year and non-stop on radios and in public places. I'd much rather have a silent night every night.

A New Link

For anyone interested who haven't checked it out yet, to the right --->
on this page is a link to my on-line photo album

A Vicious Dusting

That's what we got this morning. I woke to snow falling.

Crushed

Strong winds toppled a tree just down the street last Friday. I didn't know it til today. I'm glad I didn't park where this guy did.

If a tree falls in the city and no one is around to hear it, does the car alarm still make a sound?

Cannibal The Musical

I watched the movie Cannibal The Musical tonight on DVD. No, I'm not kidding. It was created by the same great guys that brought us Southpark, and distributed by the same film company that brought us The Toxic Avenger. I know what you're probably thinking - you want to run right out and rent this masterpiece. But believe it or not, it isn't that good. It has it's moments, but overall its not one of the better ones.

No Fly Zone

We compost our food in a couple bins in the kitchen. Worms break down the food and not decomposition. However, any time it gets over 60 F inside we have a terrible time with fruit flies all over the window. Since the weather has gotten colder all the flies are gone. It's much nicer.

The Heat Is On

It got cold enough last night that the heat kicked on for the first time this season. It's 20F outside and the apartment temperature must have gotten around 48F or slightly lower.

I was warm enough this night but have been unable to sleep. I finally threw in the towel and got up at 4:00 a.m. It's a full moon or nearly so now. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Speaking of Cold

It is 48F in the apartment right now. It may be colder by a bit but 48 is as low as the thermostat reads. Keeping it this cold is out of choice. 30 years ago Pres. Carter urged everyone to put on more layers before turning up the heat. Now three decades later the world has less oil than ever before, though our ability to find it has improved.
However, the global consequences of turning up the heat is only part of the equation here. The biggest reason is that we're both too cheap to use heat. Putting on more clothes seems to be a slippery slope, for if an extra shirt is good, but you are still cold, why not a sweater on top of that. If still cold, how about a hat?
Sarah and I have both lived outdoors for months at a time on the trails and been in cold temperatures for prolonged periods. So I tell myself that this is nothing new. In addition, I suppose there is a bit of a competitive feeling here where I won't be the first one to cave and turn up the heat.
The safety net is that the heat will soon kick on automatically if it gets much colder. We don't need to worry about frozen pipes.

Out In The Cold

There is an annual event here in Louisville. On Bardstown Road all the shops stay open til 10:00 pm, some serve little snacks, hot cider, and other things to get you to come in. One off-beat movie rental place even had a Meatloaf impersonator singing karaoke. I have to admit he was pretty good and even looked like Mr. Loaf.
My girlfriend said she wanted to go out and enjoy this annual event. Not really understanding the point of it, and not wanting to seem like a stick-in-the-mud I decided to go along. The first place we went was a bookshop. It was crowded because it was supposed to be crowded. That was the point of the whole event - get people out. I'm not talking just a little crowded either, but shoulder to shoulder, shuffle and excuse yourself all the way through the store. It didn't seem like fun, but perhaps I was missing something.
Next we went to the movie rental place. It was a bit of a walk away, and there wasn't much to see or do in between. The rental place wasn't as crowded, but it was also just the same ol' movie rental place it was that afternoon, the day before, and is probably right now - minus the Meatloaf impersonator of course.
After that we decided to head back home since we'd been out a while. As we got closer to home we got back into a crowd on the sidewalk and had to slow down to a speed that I call the "mall shuffle". It suddenly occurred to me that this was really as good as it got. I then asked my girlfriend what it was all about. She told me that humans are social creatures by nature and it was about getting out and mixing. She seemed perfectly happy with our experience, but I must point out we hadn't had a bit of interaction with anyone except each other the entire night. And at the moment we were stuck in a crowd. I pointed out that we weren't mixing with anyone but rather we had become part of a herd and we were literally just herding down the sidewalk. If that was her idea of social interaction then Black Friday must be one of the most joyous days of the year. I could be wrong, but it seemed like a just another very crowded shopping day. It's great for the shop-owners, but I didn't see the advantage to the shoppers besides long lines and congestion. And she thinks I'M crazy because I didn't like it.